The Lahman Baseball Database
Version 5.9
Release Date: December 31, 2011
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README CONTENTS
0.1 Copyright Notice
0.2 Contact Information
1.0 Release Contents
1.1 Introduction
1.2 What's New
1.3 Acknowledgements
1.4 Using this Database
1.5 Revision History
2.0 Data Tables
2.1 MASTER table
2.2 Batting Table
2.3 Pitching table
2.4 Fielding Table
2.5 All-Star table
2.6 Hall of Fame table
2.7 Managers table
2.8 Teams table
2.9 BattingPost table
2.10 PitchingPost table
2.11 TeamFranchises table
2.12 FieldingOF table
2.13 ManagersHalf table
2.14 TeamsHalf table
2.15 Salaries table
2.16 SeriesPost table
2.17 AwardsManagers table
2.18 AwardsPlayers table
2.19 AwardsShareManagers table
2.20 AwardsSharePlayers table
2.21 FieldingPost table
2.22 Appearances table
2.23 Schools table
2.24 SchoolsPlayers table
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0.1 Copyright Notice & Limited Use License
This database is copyright 1996-2012 by Sean Lahman.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. For details see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
For licensing information or further information, contact Sean Lahman
at: sean@baseball1.com
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0.2 Contact Information
Web site: http://www.baseball1.com
E-Mail : sean@baseball1.com
If you're interested in contributing to the maintenance of this
database or making suggestions for improvement, please consider
joining our mailinglist at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baseball-databank/
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1.0 Release Contents
This release of the database can be downloaded in several formats. The
contents of each version are listed below.
MS Access Versions:
lahman59.mdb
readme59.txt
Comma Delimited Version:
readme59.txt
AllStarFull.csv
Appearances.csv
AwardsManagers.csv
AwardsPlayers.csv
AwardsShareManagers.csv
AwardsSharePlayers.csv
Batting.csv
BattingPost.csv
Fielding.csv
FieldingOF.csv
FieldingPost.csv
HallOfFame.csv
Managers.csv
ManagersHalf.csv
Master.csv
Pitching.csv
PitchingPost.csv
Salaries.csv
Schools.csv
SchoolsPlayers.csv
SeriesPost.csv
Teams.csv
TeamsFranchises.csv
TeamsHalf.csv
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1.1 Introduction
This database contains pitching, hitting, and fielding statistics for
Major League Baseball from 1871 through 2011. It includes data from
the two current leagues (American and National), the four other "major"
leagues (American Association, Union Association, Players League, and
Federal League), and the National Association of 1871-1875.
This database was created by Sean Lahman, who pioneered the effort to
make baseball statistics freely available to the general public. What
started as a one man effort in 1994 has grown tremendously, and now a
team of researchers have collected their efforts to make this the
largest and most accurate source for baseball statistics available
anywhere. (See Acknowledgements below for a list of the key
contributors to this project.)
None of what we have done would have been possible without the
pioneering work of Hy Turkin, S.C. Thompson, David Neft, and Pete
Palmer (among others). All baseball fans owe a debt of gratitude
to the people who have worked so hard to build the tremendous set
of data that we have today. Our thanks also to the many members of
the Society for American Baseball Research who have helped us over
the years. We strongly urge you to support and join their efforts.
Please vist their website (www.sabr.org).
This database can never take the place of a good reference book like
The Baseball Encyclopedia. But it will enable people do to the kind
of queries and analysis that those traditional sources don't allow.
If you have any problems or find any errors, please let us know. Any
feedback is appreciated
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1.2 What's New
The licensing for this database has changed from previous versions. Please
see section 0.2 for further details.
There are no new tables in this release.
The following tables have been deprecated and are no longer included:
AllStar
HOFOld
A field was added to the HallofFame table to provide further details
about the qualifications needed for special elections. In particular,
this applies to run-off votes in 1949, 1964, and 1967 and to the
nominating vote in 1946.
The playerID for Kevin Youkilis has been changed to youkleke01, per a
request noting that the standard naming convention for player IDs
results (in his case) in what could be constued as an unintentional slur.
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1.3 Acknowledgements
Much of the raw data contained in this database comes from the work of
Pete Palmer, the legendary statistician, who has had a hand in most
of the baseball encylopedias published since 1974. He is largely
responsible for bringing the batting, pitching, and fielding data out
of the dark ages and into the computer era. Without him, none of this
would be possible. For more on Pete's work, please read his own
account at: http://sabr.org/cmsfiles/PalmerDatabaseHistory.pdf
Two people have been key contributors to the work that followed, first
by taking the raw data and creating a relational database, and later
by extending the database to make it more accesible to researchers.
Sean Lahman launched the Baseball Archive's website back before
most people had heard of the world wide web. Frustrated by the
lack of sports data available, he led the effort to build a
baseball database that everyone could use. Baseball researchers
everywhere owe him a debt of gratitude. Lahman served as an associate
editor for three editions of Total Baseball and contributed to five
editions of The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia. He has also been active in
developing databases for other sports.
The work of Sean Forman to create and maintain an online encyclopedia
at "baseball-reference.com" has been remarkable. Recognized as the
premier online reference source, Forman's site provides an oustanding
interface to the raw data. His efforts to help streamline the database
have been extremely helpful. Most importantly, Forman has spearheaded
the effort to provide standards that enable several different baseball
databases to be used together. He was also instrumental in launching
the Baseball Databank, a forum for researchers to gather and share
their work.
Since 2001, these two Seans have led a group of researchers
who volunteered to maintain and update the database.
A handful of researchers have made substantial contributions to
maintain this database in recent years. Listed alphabetically, they
are: Derek Adair, Mike Crain, Kevin Johnson, Rod Nelson, Tom Tango,
and Paul Wendt. These folks did much of the heavy lifting, and are
largely responsible for the improvements made in the last decade.
Others who made important contributions include: Dvd Avins,
Clifford Blau, Bill Burgess, Clem Comly, Jeff Burk, Randy Cox,
Mitch Dickerman, Paul DuBois, Mike Emeigh, F.X. Flinn, Bill Hickman,
Jerry Hoffman, Dan Holmes, Micke Hovmoller, Peter Kreutzer,
Danile Levine, Bruce Macleod, Ken Matinale, Michael Mavrogiannis,
Cliff Otto, Alberto Perdomo, Dave Quinn, John Rickert, Tom Ruane,
Theron Skyles, Michael Westbay, and Rob Wood.
Many other people have made significant contributions to the database
over the years. The contribution of Tom Ruane's effort to the overall
quality of the underlying data has been tremendous. His work at
retrosheet.org integrates the yearly data with the day-by-day data,
creating a reference source of startling depth. It is unlikely than
any individual has contributed as much to the field of baseball
research in the past five years as Ruane has.
Sean Holtz helped with a major overhaul and redesign before the
2000 season. Keith Woolner was instrumental in helping turn
a huge collection of stats into a relational database in the mid-1990s.
Clifford Otto & Ted Nye also helped provide guidance to the early
versions. Lee Sinnis, John Northey & Erik Greenwood helped supply key
pieces of data. Many others have written in with corrections and
suggestions that made each subsequent version even better than what
preceded it.
The work of the SABR Baseball Records Committee, led by Lyle Spatz
has been invaluable. So has the work of Bill Carle and the SABR
Biographical Committee. David Vincent, keeper of the Home Run Log and
other bits of hard to find info, has always been helpful. The recent
addition of colleges to player bios is the result of much research by
members of SABR's Collegiate Baseball committee.
Salary data has been supplied by Doug Pappas, who passed away during
the summer of 2004. He was the leading authority on many subjects,
most significantly the financial history of Major League Baseball.
We are grateful that he allowed us to include some of the data he
compiled. His work has been continued by the SABR Business of
Baseball committee.
Thanks is also due to the staff at the National Baseball Library
in Cooperstown who have been so helpful -- Tim Wiles, Jim Gates,
Bruce Markusen, and the rest of the staff.
A special debt of gratitude is owed to Dave Smith and the folks at
Retrosheet. There is no other group working so hard to compile and
share baseball data. Their website (www.retrosheet.org) will give
you a taste of the wealth of information Dave and the gang have collected.
Thanks to all contributors great and small. What you have created is
a wonderful thing.
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1.4 Using this Database
This version of the database is available in Microsoft Access
format or in a generic, comma delimited format. Because this is a
relational database, you will not be able to use the data in a
flat-database application.
Please note that this is not a stand alone application. It requires
a database application or some other application designed specifically
to interact with the database.
If you are unable to import the data directly, you should download the
database in the delimted text format. Then use the documentation
in sections 2.1 through 2.22 of this document to import the data into
your database application.
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1.5 Revision History
Version Date Comments
1.0 December 1992 Database ported from dBase
1.1 May 1993 Becomes fully relational
1.2 July 1993 Corrections made to full database
1.21 December 1993 1993 statistics added
1.3 July 1994 Pre-1900 data added
1.31 February 1995 1994 Statistics added
1.32 August 1995 Statistics added for other leagues
1.4 September 1995 Fielding Data added
1.41 November 1995 1995 statistics added
1.42 March 1996 HOF/All-Star tables added
1.5-MS October 1996 1st public release - MS Access format
1.5-GV October 1996 Released generic comma-delimted files
1.6-MS December 1996 Updated with 1996 stats, some corrections
1.61-MS December 1996 Corrected error in MASTER table
1.62 February 1997 Corrected 1914-1915 batters data and updated
2.0 February 1998 Major Revisions-added teams & managers
2.1 October 1998 Interim release w/1998 stats
2.2 January 1999 New release w/post-season stats & awards added
3.0 November 1999 Major release - fixed errors and 1999 statistics added
4.0 May 2001 Major release - proofed & redesigned tables
4.5 March 2002 Updated with 2001 stats and added new biographical data
5.0 December 2002 Major revision - new tables and data
5.1 January 2004 Updated with 2003 data, and new pitching categories
5.2 November 2004 Updated with 2004 season statistics.
5.3 December 2005 Updated with 2005 season statistics.
5.4 December 2006 Updated with 2006 season statistics.
5.5 December 2007 Updated with 2007 season statistics.
5.6 December 2008 Updated with 2008 season statistics.
5.7 December 2009 Updated for 2009 and added several tables.
5.8 December 2010 Updated with 2010 season statistics.
5.9 December 2011 Updated for 2011 and removed obsolete tables.
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2.0 Data Tables
The design follows these general principles. Each player is assigned a
unique number (playerID). All of the information relating to that player
is tagged with his playerID. The playerIDs are linked to names and
birthdates in the MASTER table.
The database is comprised of the following main tables:
MASTER - Player names, DOB, and biographical info
Batting - batting statistics
Pitching - pitching statistics
Fielding - fielding statistics
It is supplemented by these tables:
AllStarFull - All-Star appearances
Hall of Fame - Hall of Fame voting data
Managers - managerial statistics
Teams - yearly stats and standings
BattingPost - post-season batting statistics
PitchingPost - post-season pitching statistics
TeamFranchises - franchise information
FieldingOF - outfield position data
FieldingPost- post-season fieldinf data
ManagersHalf - split season data for managers
TeamsHalf - split season data for teams
Salaries - player salary data
SeriesPost - post-season series information
AwardsManagers - awards won by managers
AwardsPlayers - awards won by players
AwardsShareManagers - award voting for manager awards
AwardsSharePlayers - award voting for player awards
Appearances
Schools
SchoolsPlayers
Sections 2.1 through 2.27 of this document describe each of the tables in
detail and the fields that each contains.
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2.1 MASTER table
lahmanID Unique number assigned to each player
playerID A unique code asssigned to each player. The playerID links
the data in this file with records in the other files.
managerID An ID for individuals who served as managers
hofID An ID for individuals who are in teh baseball Hall of Fame
birthYear Year player was born
birthMonth Month player was born
birthDay Day player was born
birthCountry Country where player was born
birthState State where player was born
birthCity City where player was born
deathYear Year player died
deathMonth Month player died
deathDay Day player died
deathCountry Country where player died
deathState State where player died
deathCity City where player died
nameFirst Player's first name
nameLast Player's last name
nameNote Note about player's name (usually signifying that they changed
their name or played under two differnt names)
nameGiven Player's given name (typically first and middle)
nameNick Player's nickname
weight Player's weight in pounds
height Player's height in inches
bats Player's batting hand (left, right, or both)
throws Player's throwing hand (left or right)
debut Date that player made first major league appearance
finalGame Date that player made first major league appearance (blank if still active)
college College attended
lahman40ID ID used in Lahman Database version 4.0
lahman45ID ID used in Lahman database version 4.5
retroID ID used by retrosheet
holtzID ID used by Sean Holtz's Baseball Almanac
bbrefID ID used by Baseball Reference website
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2.2 Batting Table
playerID Player ID code
yearID Year
stint player's stint (order of appearances within a season)
teamID Team
lgID League
G Games
G_batting Game as batter
AB At Bats
R Runs
H Hits
2B Doubles
3B Triples
HR Homeruns
RBI Runs Batted In
SB Stolen Bases
CS Caught Stealing
BB Base on Balls
SO Strikeouts
IBB Intentional walks
HBP Hit by pitch
SH Sacrifice hits
SF Sacrifice flies
GIDP Grounded into double plays
G_Old Old version of games (deprecated)
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2.3 Pitching table
playerID Player ID code
yearID Year
stint player's stint (order of appearances within a season)
teamID Team
lgID League
W Wins
L Losses
G Games
GS Games Started
CG Complete Games
SHO Shutouts
SV Saves
IPOuts Outs Pitched (innings pitched x 3)
H Hits
ER Earned Runs
HR Homeruns
BB Walks
SO Strikeouts
BAOpp Opponent's Batting Average
ERA Earned Run Average
IBB Intentional Walks
WP Wild Pitches
HBP Batters Hit By Pitch
BK Balks
BFP Batters faced by Pitcher
GF Games Finished
R Runs Allowed
SH Sacrifices by opposing batters
SF Sacrifice flies by opposing batters
GIDP Grounded into double plays by opposing batter
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2.4 Fielding Table
playerID Player ID code
yearID Year
stint player's stint (order of appearances within a season)
teamID Team
lgID League
Pos Position
G Games
GS Games Started
InnOuts Time played in the field expressed as outs
PO Putouts
A Assists
E Errors
DP Double Plays
PB Passed Balls (by catchers)
WP Wild Pitches (by catchers)
SB Opponent Stolen Bases (by catchers)
CS Opponents Caught Stealing (by catchers)
ZR Zone Rating
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2.5 AllstarFull table
playerID Player ID code
YearID Year
gameNum Game number (zero if only one All-Star game played that season)
gameID Retrosheet ID for the game idea
teamID Team
lgID League
GP 1 if Played in the game
startingPos If player was game starter, the position played
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2.6 HallOfFame table
hofID Player ID code
yearID Year of ballot
votedBy Method by which player was voted upon
ballots Total ballots cast in that year
needed Number of votes needed for selection in that year
votes Total votes received
inducted Whether player was inducted by that vote or not (Y or N)
category Category in which candidate was honored
needed_note Explanation of qualifiers for special elections
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2.7 Managers table
managerID Player ID Number
yearID Year
teamID Team
lgID League
inseason Managerial order. Zero if the individual managed the team
the entire year. Otherwise denotes where the manager appeared
in the managerial order (1 for first manager, 2 for second, etc.)
G Games managed
W Wins
L Losses
rank Team's final position in standings that year
plyrMgr Player Manager (denoted by 'Y')
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2.8 Teams table
yearID Year
lgID League
teamID Team
franchID Franchise (links to TeamsFranchise table)
divID Team's division
Rank Position in final standings
G Games played
GHome Games played at home
W Wins
L Losses
DivWin Division Winner (Y or N)
WCWin Wild Card Winner (Y or N)
LgWin League Champion(Y or N)
WSWin World Series Winner (Y or N)
R Runs scored
AB At bats
H Hits by batters
2B Doubles
3B Triples
HR Homeruns by batters
BB Walks by batters
SO Strikeouts by batters
SB Stolen bases
CS Caught stealing
HBP Batters hit by pitch
SF Sacrifice flies
RA Opponents runs scored
ER Earned runs allowed
ERA Earned run average
CG Complete games
SHO Shutouts
SV Saves
IPOuts Outs Pitched (innings pitched x 3)
HA Hits allowed
HRA Homeruns allowed
BBA Walks allowed
SOA Strikeouts by pitchers
E Errors
DP Double Plays
FP Fielding percentage
name Team's full name
park Name of team's home ballpark
attendance Home attendance total
BPF Three-year park factor for batters
PPF Three-year park factor for pitchers
teamIDBR Team ID used by Baseball Reference website
teamIDlahman45 Team ID used in Lahman database version 4.5
teamIDretro Team ID used by Retrosheet
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2.9 BattingPost table
yearID Year
round Level of playoffs
playerID Player ID code
teamID Team
lgID League
G Games
AB At Bats
R Runs
H Hits
2B Doubles
3B Triples
HR Homeruns
RBI Runs Batted In
SB Stolen Bases
CS Caught stealing
BB Base on Balls
SO Strikeouts
IBB Intentional walks
HBP Hit by pitch
SH Sacrifices
SF Sacrifice flies
GIDP Grounded into double plays
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2.10 PitchingPost table
playerID Player ID code
yearID Year
round Level of playoffs
teamID Team
lgID League
W Wins
L Losses
G Games
GS Games Started
CG Complete Games
SHO Shutouts
SV Saves
IPOuts Outs Pitched (innings pitched x 3)
H Hits
ER Earned Runs
HR Homeruns
BB Walks
SO Strikeouts
BAOpp Opponents' batting average
ERA Earned Run Average
IBB Intentional Walks
WP Wild Pitches
HBP Batters Hit By Pitch
BK Balks
BFP Batters faced by Pitcher
GF Games Finished
R Runs Allowed
SH Sacrifice Hits allowed
SF Sacrifice Flies allowed
GIDP Grounded into Double Plays
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2.11 TeamFranchises table
franchID Franchise ID
franchName Franchise name
active Whetehr team is currently active (Y or N)
NAassoc ID of National Association team franchise played as
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2.12 FieldingOF table
playerID Player ID code
yearID Year
stint player's stint (order of appearances within a season)
Glf Games played in left field
Gcf Games played in center field
Grf Games played in right field
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2.13 ManagersHalf table
managerID Manager ID code
yearID Year
teamID Team
lgID League
inseason Managerial order. One if the individual managed the team
the entire year. Otherwise denotes where the manager appeared
in the managerial order (1 for first manager, 2 for second, etc.)
half First or second half of season
G Games managed
W Wins
L Losses
rank Team's position in standings for the half
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2.14 TeamsHalf table
yearID Year
lgID League
teamID Team
half First or second half of season
divID Division
DivWin Won Division (Y or N)
rank Team's position in standings for the half
G Games played
W Wins
L Losses
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2.15 Salaries table
yearID Year
teamID Team
lgID League
playerID Player ID code
salary Salary
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2.16 SeriesPost table
yearID Year
round Level of playoffs
teamIDwinner Team ID of the team that won the series
lgIDwinner League ID of the team that won the series
teamIDloser Team ID of the team that lost the series
lgIDloser League ID of the team that lost the series
wins Wins by team that won the series
losses Losses by team that won the series
ties Tie games
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2.17 AwardsManagers table
managerID Manager ID code
awardID Name of award won
yearID Year
lgID League
tie Award was a tie (Y or N)
notes Notes about the award
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2.18 AwardsPlayers table
playerID Player ID code
awardID Name of award won
yearID Year
lgID League
tie Award was a tie (Y or N)
notes Notes about the award
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2.19 AwardsShareManagers table
awardID name of award votes were received for
yearID Year
lgID League
managerID Manager ID code
pointsWon Number of points received
pointsMax Maximum numner of points possible
votesFirst Number of first place votes
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2.20 AwardsSharePlayers table
awardID name of award votes were received for
yearID Year
lgID League
playerID Player ID code
pointsWon Number of points received
pointsMax Maximum numner of points possible
votesFirst Number of first place votes
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2.21 FieldingPost table
playerID Player ID code
yearID Year
teamID Team
lgID League
round Level of playoffs
Pos Position
G Games
GS Games Started
InnOuts Time played in the field expressed as outs
PO Putouts
A Assists
E Errors
DP Double Plays
TP Triple Plays
PB Passed Balls
SB Stolen Bases allowed (by catcher)
CS Caught Stealing (by catcher)
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2.22 Appearances table
yearID Year
teamID Team
lgID League
playerID Player ID code
G_all Total games played
GS Games started
G_batting Games in which player batted
G_defense Games in which player appeared on defense
G_p Games as pitcher
G_c Games as catcher
G_1b Games as firstbaseman
G_2b Games as secondbaseman
G_3b Games as thirdbaseman
G_ss Games as shortstop
G_lf Games as leftfielder
G_cf Games as centerfielder
G_rf Games as right fielder
G_of Games as outfielder
G_dh Games as designated hitter
G_ph Games as pinch hitter
G_pr Games as pinch runner
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2.23 Schools table
schoolID school ID code
schoolName school name
schoolCity city where school is located
schoolState state where school's city is located
schoolNick nickname for school's baseball team
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2.24 SchoolsPlayers
playerid Player ID code
schoolID school ID code
yearMin year player's college career started
yearMax year player's college career started